Professional Photography

[#1]

By David Saffir

Most photographs are created twice: once in your imagination, and a second time during your creative workflow. Creating a photograph in your mind’s eye before you set up the shot or process the image is referred to as visualization. The idea of visualization in photography is not new. Masters of photography such as Alfred Steiglitz and Ansel Adams spoke of visualization quite eloquently. Visualization can be an important part of fully expressing your intent in your photographs.

How you visualize your photographs can be influenced by your experiences, feelings, knowledge, skills, and technical practices. For example:

• What feelings and perceptions about the subject do you wish to communicate?
• What camera are you using? Will you be shooting film or digital?
• What exposure, dynamic range, or depth of focus do you need to capture to call attention to the most important elements of the image?
• How will you compose and frame the shot?
• What type of lighting and weather conditions will affect the look of the shot?
• What changes and effects do you envision applying during the image editing phase of your creative workflow?
• How will people view the final image? If it will be printed, what type or printing process and media will you be using?

There are no “rules” here. When you envision a shot, you may be thinking through some additional questions. Or, you may be disregarding some of the questions above. Every photographer has different creative goals.

There are times in my own work where I visualize an image, almost fully formed, long before the photo shoot. I can put myself in the right place, at the right time, and be satisfied that I’ve achieved my goals.

In other cases, particularly landscape work, I may visit a location several times in a day, or repeatedly over a period of weeks or months. The image I see in my imagination often changes in appearance. So visualization can be an evolutionary process.

You could try to divide visualization into two parts: creative and technical. I’m not sure this is the most desirable approach. In my own work, the creative and technical aspects of an image seem to blend together. I have a pretty good sense of what the technology and tools can do, and that informs my creative work.

For example, I know that what my eyes can see in terms of dynamic range can’t be fully reproduced in a photograph. However, I usually do know what portion of the dynamic range will work. So, I visualize the image, keeping in mind the capabilities of the technology. Of course, devices such as exposure meters provide an important reality check.

Effective visualization can be a significant factor in the execution of your creative workflow. Whether you can visualize an image in great detail or simply in terms of basic framing and composition, visualization influences your planning for camera setup, capture, image editing, and printing.

Mastery of visualization can make an important difference in the quality of your photography.

I’m not suggesting that the skill of visualization can be developed overnight. In my view, it is the product of experience with one’s own work, and learning from the work of others. Visualization is part of the art of photography, and the skill will grow over time, as you become more proficient in other aspects of photography.

What are your thoughts on the subject? How do you incorporate visualization in your own creative workflow?

[#2]

When I'm taking travel pictures, I often find that I am researching my subject and trying to find out everything I can about it especially if I don't have an opportunity to scout the location before hand. Based on what I can find out, I often come up with a plan for a set of photos I want to take (where to take the picture from, what time of day, what filters, what framing, what lens, etc). In some ways this is very methodical and maybe this is what you mean by the technical aspect of visualization. That said, some of my favorite images often have a great bit of serendipity behind them which really occur with almost planning. I just stumbled upon a great scene and started snapping pictures.